spearo's is this the norm

[devocean]

The answer to your question is no this is not the norm. I have been spearing for 25 of my 29 years and I can tell you this is not the norm. please dont let a couple of a boatload of idiots convince you that we are all like this. There are a lot of dumb fishos out there who slaughter heaps of fish and be idiots but we (spearos) dont condemn the lot of you.

Just the other day I went for a shore dive and passed a guy fishing I asked him permission if i could swim past him and he was happy to oblige. Its not the form of fishing its the person doing it.

Spearfishing is the most sustainable form of fishing as it is release and catch and very selective unlike fishing where yiou catch wehatevers down there biting.
I am a memeber of several spearfishing forums I will pass this message onto to them and get these guys to pull there heads in.

The majority of us spearos are good guys and we have a strong membership Federation (AUF) which has a stringent set of rules and regulations that all decent spearos afhere to.

Like anything in life common sense prevails and these spearos dont seem to have any but dont label the rest of us.

Cheers Dan

[kingtin]

Hope My Longest Post Dosent Stir To Much Poo Lol

Dunno, I couldn't read it. Not being funny mate, but they eye/brain co-ordination thingy is practiced in what it's accustomed to/expects to see. I have some difficulties in this area, but even if I hadn't, I'm sure others may have the same problems with seeing an upper case letter at the beginning of each word. I may be wrong, but I can assure you, I can't read it. Sorry

kev

[ffejsmada]

Dunno, I couldn't read it. Not being funny mate, but they eye/brain co-ordination thingy is practiced in what it's accustomed to/expects to see. I have some difficulties in this area, but even if I hadn't, I'm sure others may have the same problems with seeing an upper case letter at the beginning of each word. I may be wrong, but I can assure you, I can't read it. Sorry

kev

I agree Kev, capitals at the start of each word??? Ridiculous!!

Too hard to read.

[kingyfisher]

Focus guys FoCus ,....we were talking spearfishing ettiquite (sp?) here. Any way hows this for downright bastardry. A couple of mates of mine were fishing off a deepwater wharf where we had previously discovered a motherlode of 1m long Kings.The technique involved heavy berleying of certain thing that will forever remain secret .Anyhow the word got out and some undesireables turned up trying to "poach" on my mates berley ,but even so they couldn't buy a bite because of poor technique. So they lobbed up again ,this time with a LOADED speargun and pushed up to my mates who had a large King feeding on the surface ,reached over and fired this thing (quite hi-tech apparently) right next to them and into the water.Unfortunately they were flukey enough to spear the fish through it's head. The last laugh was on them because the king went ballistic and nearly pulled this ratbag off the wharf before eventually tearing itself free of the spear and swimming of to die leaving a massive ammount of blood in the water. This spooked the rest of the fish so my mates just packed up and left. I think they were a bit afraid of confronting these 5 idiots,but I'm not so sure that a call to the cops might not have seen them in deep sh*t for discharging a deadly weapon in a public place

[boodo]

i was being generous at saying 20m i just cant see why a crew of spearos would jump out right where another bloke was fishing away from everyone else it would seem like they had there mind set thet this is where they were going to fish and that is it, if i or a majority of other blokes headed out to fish a particular spot but when you arrived someone else was there, well in my opinion you move one to your next choice, you dont just take over because you out number or think you have the right to do so, this sort of caper really pisses me off, i am sure that there are decent blokes who spear, but the blokes i have come across around tweed, kingscliff and hastings are nothing short of morons, tarnishing the blokes who do the right thing.

[Owen]

Ummmm
I think what they did was wrong but.......
If spear fishermen (fisherpersons?) scare the fish so bad then ummmm......
How do they ever catch any??????


Just a thought.
Never have & never will spear fish.
Sharks...
Too many sharks in China....

[-Chris-]

I tend to agree with alot of comments on this topic, although I think you are letting a few spearo's with no common sense let you think that all spearo's are like this. There are alot of cowboys in the sport of spearing, people that time after time don't follow whats wrong and whats right alot of them who should know better because they are selling the gear and running the spearfishing stores, these are the people that should be setting the example, not giving spearo's a bad name. However there are alot of top blokes out there that spearfish that don't put a foot wrong. Please don't let a few people doing the wrong thing give you the idea that spearfishing should be banned or whatever. I've seen PLENTY of fishos doing the wrong things also in my time spearfishing. One instance I can remember diving boult reef and seeing a bunch of blokes cleaning their boat out, throwing all their rubbish into the drink before they headed home.

[lock]

The way I see it there is always a small number of rude buggers in every sport which always out shines the the good. Fishing is not different if some one does move in you can either grim and bare it or move off cos no one ownes the water. There is not much point in trying to hurt some one just cos you think they are to close.

[JIMMY80]

Here, here -Chris- and lock, my point exactly. There are knobs on both sides that don't care that their actions represent a greater community.

I am still perplexed when people tell me about some newbie tool shooting undersize fish as if that is the norm for all spearo's. I have noticed the longer you are in the sport the more you actually value the quality not quantity of your catch, often taking 1 or 2 prize fish instead of the half dozen legal but common size/species which is much more rewarding.

sorry i have gone off on a tangent, it just shits me when spearo's get a bad name cause off the popularity of the sport is increasing and attracting people with no respect for others or the ocean.

Jim

[B_E_N]

sorry about the post it actually wasnt my fault, i did have them all in capitals (i have it on caps lock for work) and didnt take it off, so i geuss when i posted it only the first letters stayed in capitals and the other went in lower case. oh well a lesson learned.

sorry for those who found it hard to read also

ben

[preso]

I had a situation out at the wave rider bouy off Nth Staddie a while back. We were fishing for Dolphin fish, motoring up and drifting back past it. Catching maybe 1 each drift, when a young fellow started to spear, doing the same, motor up drift back past.
All good. Eveyone giving each other enough room etc. I thought it was great to see. But very quickly the fish shut down.
Now I dont think the young spearo did any thing wrong, far from it. But he moved on and left us with no fish bitting at all.
I dont know if this is what happens all the time but, I reckon no one, whatever they're doing should Impact on others enjoyment.
PS. lets stick to chucking sinkers at jetskis LOL


Cheers Preso

[boney-leg]

But very quickly the fish shut down.
Now I dont think the young spearo did any thing wrong, far from it. But he moved on and left us with no fish bitting at all.


Cheers Preso

Yeh not sure you can put that down to the person in the water. I was out there one day with a mate and we were doing drifts for a couple of hours and the school hung there. There are soooooo many variables to fishing that I reckon it's too hard to prove. A speared fish and one on a set of hooks will be sending off the same distress signals.

[eddie2]

I have been spearing and line fishing for most of my life. While doing both activities I have seen idiots. I think we should start to stand up for each other. Otherwise the greenies will move in and none of us will be able to take fish.

[kokomo]

I had a situation out at the wave rider buoy off Nth Staddie a while back. We were fishing for Dolphin fish, motoring up and drifting back past it. Catching maybe 1 each drift, when a young fellow started to spear, doing the same, motor up drift back past.
All good. Everyone giving each other enough room etc. I thought it was great to see. But very quickly the fish shut down.
Now I dont think the young spearo did any thing wrong, far from it. But he moved on and left us with no fish bitting at all.
I dont know if this is what happens all the time but, I reckon no one, whatever they're doing should Impact on others enjoyment.
PS. lets stick to chucking sinkers at jetskis LOL


Cheers Preso

Hey preso...

i think i remember your boat out there that day.. and it was us doing the diving.. out of a white 6.5m centercab, it was over the xmas new year's break.

its good to hear that we didnt piss you off, we do out best to stay out of everyones way, we do a few drifts past take some fish and move on to the next spot..

its interesting as we almost always do fishing and diving trips at the same time as some of my mates are not interested in diving so they take rods and vise versa. so we are almost always diving and fishing the same bit of water..

I am almost prepared to say that from years of doing this that spearo's being in the water do not affect the bit of a fish.. and that fisho's would like to think that spearo's have ruined their bite.

especially at wave rider where the fish remain totally unaffected by us being in the water they are actually attracted to us maybe think we are a FAD

It was interesting a few weeks ago we were diving and fishing at shag rock and i sware to anyone the fish the lino's were catching were totally different to anything i saw under the boat.. plenty of decent squire and i would dive down and not see a thing yet id see all sorts of other fish that they never caught.. small kings trevalley etc etc..



so peace out to all the fisho's i both spearfish and line fish.. love doing both... have no problem giving each other space, its all about respect in the end.... and we should really unite to fight the greenies, the infighting just makes us both look bad..

im very confident claiming that spearo's dont affect the bite as much as you would like to think... 8/10 days the lino's catch more than I do anyway out of the same boat in the same water

[mattooty]

Its strange that it is repeatadly said that a spear fisherman 'spooks' the fish. Every dive I've participated in I have swam through schools of fish and the worst behaviour I've received was that they parted to keep their distance and rejoined. I'm sure most of us have seen a school of fish that has just had a fish speared out of it school up almost straight after and reside in the very same spot.
Unless the fish as a collective can identify you as a consistent threat to their well being then a human will never trigger the same reactions that a similar sized shark or dolphin will. The once off when that fish encounters a human will either be its last moments of life anyway or it will watch a big 4 limbed cumbersome creature move through the water past it.
And in regards to throwing snapper leads, thats assault with the willful intent to harm another person. Funnily enough, thats illegal and will be treated no different to a bloke being bashed outside a pub.
"Your honour, he encroached on my fishing spot"